It's not who comes after Blair, but what
                  The immaculate succession? After all these years of trying, Gordon Brown has finally achieved his breakthrough. Even his adversaries now accept that he is the undisputed heir to the throne. The victory has, however, come at a price. For all the talk of a co-ordinated handover, some (although not all) around the Prime Minister are doing everything they can to undermine the Chancellor's long-term ambitions. Having given up hope of preventing Brown taking over, they are concentrating their efforts on ensuring that he becomes just a continuation of the status quo, minus the charisma or novelty. 

That some of the more malevolent elements in new Labour might plot in this way comes as little surprise. More disheartening is the way in which Brown and his followers have been so easily outmanoeuvred. A straitjacket was presented to the Chancellor, and to the disappointment of many, he has chosen to put it on. Instead of setting out a progressive agenda for change and developing his thinking on economic fairness and social cohesion, Brown embarked on his series of policy speeches, playing to a miserabilist gallery on law and order, and leavening his presentations with superficial gestures to patriotism. (His cultural references are locked in a disappointingly narrow Anglo-Saxon prism.) 

Throw in a few awkward tabloid newspaper interviews and some parliamentary lobbying on behalf of ID cards and the anti-terror bill, and the picture becomes gloomier still. 

It need not have been this way. More importantly, it need not stay this way. Brown's advisers are labouring under two misapprehensions: that there is only one way to woo the British electorate (by trimming his vision), and that there is only one way of hastening Blair's departure (by straining every sinew to be loyal). He has allowed himself to be convinced that his top priority is a voter-friendly make-over - with the pink ties, manufactured smiles and rehearsed photo opportunities. Some image consultancy might not go amiss, particularly in his approach to television and radio interviews, but what matters most, according to all the polls, is integrity and a sense of purpose. And those polls show him performing strongly on that score. Yet, in his understandable impatience to secure the office that has long been denied him, Brown is in danger of shedding the characteristics that have served him well. 

The British electorate is not nearly as anxious about radical change as new Labour has tended to believe. Paradoxically, it is David Cameron who understands (or gives a good impression of understanding) that a more interventionist approach to the environment and a more ambitious approach to democratic engagement now reflect mainstream opinion. Those who advocate tougher anti-terrorist measures also wish to hear more about the causes of terrorism (an area Brown all but ignored in his speech on 13 February). Even those who lead affluent lives often wonder whether more cannot be done to curb the excesses of a global super-elite that is out of control. Such concerns are no longer the preserve of the left. Blair, with the exception of the Iraq war, has spent most of his time in office fearful of voters. This is one trait not to be emulated. 

Each month that this limbo continues, Labour is damaged. Blair knows that he, and he alone, will determine the date of his departure. That is the only untrammelled power he has left and he intends to use it to the full. 

Brown has no choice but to wait. Although he would be advised to avoid any action that could be construed or misconstrued as overtly disloyal, he can still use the time profitably to carve out an agenda that is distinctive and uplifting. He needs, as a start, to set out a new vision on foreign policy; he needs to show where he stands on civil liberties; he needs to develop his thinking about a fairer society. He should not allow himself to do Blair's dirty work - cajoling Labour MPs into voting for measures that he, too, has reservations about, or becoming the frontman for the local elections in May that could well deliver a damning verdict on this government. 

Labour's defeat in the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election was a personal setback for the Chancellor, but it might serve as a useful warning. What matters is not who comes after Blair, but what. Brown has nothing to fear in his quest to become a truly inspirational politician, except his own fear. 



Gone . . . in a puff of smoke 

Praise be to our MPs, for their decision to ban smoking in public places. They did it in the end, but it was a struggle. They could have borrowed some of the decisiveness and linguistic dexterity of their forebears. It was King James I who, in 1604, described the custom as "loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain". 

In those days of a truly global economy, others followed suit. The Chinese were keen to ban production and consumption of tobacco. Pope Urban VIII threatened to excommunicate anyone who "took tobacco in the porchway of or inside a church, whether by chewing it, smoking it with a pipe or sniffing it in powdered form through the nose". 

Over the centuries many bans have been imposed, in settings as diverse as France in the reign of Louis XV and Nazi Germany. In each case, regime change led to a relaxation. Our more stable constitution suggests that this law is here to stay. 
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